Bust of a young woman

Jean-Pierre Dantan

1836 · Marble · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Dantan mixed Neoclassical training with interests in caricature, phrenology, and fashionable society. Today he is best known as a caricaturist, although straightforward portraits comprise at least half his output. Occasionally they may have a mischievous undertone, but this young woman has an appreciable semblance of wit and sparkle even as she flaunts the latest hairstyle dubbed "à la Hortense Mancini". The plaster model for it is not among the trove of those by Dantan in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Artist

Jean-Pierre Dantan

Date

1836

Medium

Marble

Culture

French

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Gift of Michael Hall, in memory of W. R. Valentiner, 2000